Deirdre Connelly continues her climb on Fortune magazine's annual list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business.

Connelly, 50, a top executive at GlaxoSmithKline, rose to No. 27 on this year's list, up 10 spots from last year.

As president of North American pharmaceuticals for the British company, Connelly oversees GSK's Triangle operations and its 5,000 employees in Research Triangle Park and Zebulon.

She reports to CEO Andrew Witty and is responsible for helping GSK scientists find promising new drugs and boosting sales of existing products.

As Fortune notes, Connelly's "$15-billion-a-year business hinges on its respiratory franchise. The hope: that Relovair, now in clinical trials, replaces Advair, the blockbuster GSK drug whose patent soon expires."

Falling on her face and breaking a tooth helped steer Sallie Krawcheck to her new job as Bank of America's head of global wealth management.

During an on-stage interview this week with Fortune magazine at New York's Museum of American Finance, Krawcheck told a story about how she almost took another job before accepting the position with the Charlotte-based bank.

The other job was a "a leadership opportunity at a troubled financial-services company," Krawcheck told the audience. But on the way to an interview, the UNC-Chapel Hill alumnae caught the heel of her shoe in a crack in the Madison Avenue sidewalk.

She did not make the meeting, Fortune reported. "I ended up with six stitches, one broken tooth, a hairline jaw fracture, a dislocated jaw and whiplash," she said.

At least two bankers with Triangle ties are being mentioned as possible replacements for Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis.

Lewis, who faced mounting criticism, announced last night he would retire Dec. 31. The Charlotte company said it would name a "worthy" successor before then.

There are six insiders on the list of potential candidates, including Sallie Krawcheck, a former Citigroup executive and UNC-Chapel Hill alumna, the Charlotte Observer reports. But our sister paper also mentions Bob Steel, a former Wachovia executive and Durham native.

They will have big shoes to fill. Lewis joined the company's predecessor 40 years ago and helped build it into a banking behemoth. In 2007, Time magazine named him of the the world's 100 most influential people.

Read the full Charlotte Observer story here, and find links to other in-depth coverage of Lewis and Bank of America.

Joining GlaxoSmithKline boosted Deirdre Connelly's power ranking.

Connelly, who became head of GSK's North American pharmaceutical business in February, is No. 37 on Fortune Magazine's latest list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in business. Connelly, 49, defected to GSK after spending 25 years at rival Eli Lilly.

Connelly was No. 42 in last year's Fortune list.

She is the top ranking official at GSK's U.S. headquarters in Research Triangle Park and oversees key drugs such as the asthma treatment Advair. The British drug maker employs more than 5,000 in the Triangle but has been shedding jobs to cut costs amid slowing U.S. sales.

A few other Tar Heels made Fortune's latest list.

Sallie Krawcheck, the former Citigroup executive named last week to head Bank of America's wealth-management business, said she wants to build on Merrill Lynch’s history rather than tear it down, Bloomberg News reports.

“What I’m not going to do is turn this into a place I’ve been before,” she said in an Aug. 7 video message to the brokerage’s 15,000 financial advisers. “Those are great institutions, but this is a fantastic, fantastic business.”

Krawcheck, 44, said she doesn’t like hearing that the merger “means the end of the Merrill Lynch culture.” Krawcheck is a UNC-Chapel Hill grad who has risen to become one of the most powerful women on Wall Street.

Asked to describe herself, Krawcheck said on the video, “I’m a southerner by birth, but a northerner for some number of years. I’m a huge college basketball fan, particularly the University of North Carolina. I’m a runner, but I’m very slow.”

The Bloomberg story notes that Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis rebuilt Merrill’s management since it bought the investment bank in a government-brokered deal on Jan. 1, replacing more than three dozen senior executives and investment bankers.